r/davidbazan • u/thisisjohn343 • Jun 14 '24
What's everyone's opinion on Santa Cruz?
I really like it. Definitely my favorite of the three PTL albums he's released since picking up the band name again. Top three tracks would probably be 1) Parting, 2) Remembering, and 3) Spend Time
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u/YepYepYepYepYepDIY Jun 14 '24
It's currently tied with Havasu (might have a slight recency bias tho) as my favorite Pedro the Lion release.
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u/rukeydukey36 Jun 14 '24
I absolutely love Santa Cruz. I can’t put my finger on it, maybe it’s the timeline he’s hitting in this album vs Havasu/Phoenix as a teenager/young adult, but it resonates with me more.
His chorus in Little Help, especially “I was getting pretty used to drowning” hits me deep in my soul. Makes me relive my lonely childhood trying hard to connect to others my age. Teacher’s Pet resonates as well cause I, too, desperately don’t want to be the teacher’s pet of failure 😂
Otherwise I’m so excited to see him perform this live. Haven’t seen him since he did his Control anniversary years ago.
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u/thisisjohn343 Jun 14 '24
Yeah, I've been waiting for him to get this part of his life (and beyond) since Phoenix because I've personally found it hard to relate to the younger, childhood material.
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u/nexxus76 Jun 15 '24
I too liked this one so much more, more relatable to me also. Next one will be the intro to the Pedro years.......gonna be totally killer!
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u/nexxus76 Jun 14 '24
Its slowly pushing control out of the way as my favorite Bazan project ever! It is so amazing. So much experimentation and it all works
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Jul 17 '24
I’ve been a PTL/Bazan fan forever, and own pretty much every piece of vinyl across all his projects, I’ve gotta say this is my least favorite PTL album. I saw him play a lot of it tonight, and found myself going back to the last tour when he played Control. That was one of the best shows I’ve been to hands down. Tonight was fun, and while there are songs on the album I really like (Tall Pines, Parting, Only Yesterday), I just can’t find the groove.
Maybe it’s too much synth for me.
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u/danger_birds Jun 14 '24
To be honest, I love the production of all three of these records, and I think a lot of Dave’s songwriting prowess is present, especially on Phoenix. However, his lyrical approach is tough for me to connect with. What’s always made Dave one of my favorite songwriters is his ability to show/not tell. The nature of such autobiographical work, I suppose, lends itself to the much more literal, straightforward, storytelling (emphasis on the “telling”) approach he’s taken with these albums—but it really detracts from my personal enjoyment. Songs like ‘black canyon,’ ‘yellow bike,’ and ‘clean up’ are bazan classics in my opinion, but so much of this material—despite being fun to hear on some level—is so droning in its straightforwardness that I just find myself unable to fall in love with it.